Gray in the beard. Review of the film ”The Great Equalizer 2”
Robert McCall (Denzel Washington) with a false beard rides a high speed train on some incredibly scenic railway in Turkey. He, as usual, reads a book, and then goes to the restaurant car and reads morality to the next villain. Like, it is useless to separate a mother from her daughter, just to teach her ex-wife a lesson. Then the signature spectacular fight with bare hands and again the proprietary morality: there is pain that kills, but there is one that makes us better. The villain, of course, listens to non-verbal arguments and makes the right choice. These scenes, with minimal variations, make up "The Great Equalizer 2". But first things first ...It is completely incomprehensible why the equalizer became great among us. There is not a word about greatness in the original, and rightly so. The new film of the tough artisan Antoine Fuqua is the sequel to the rather successful, but also medium-sized action game of 2014. In general, the story of retired CIA officer Robert McCall has been familiar to US viewers for a long time. Four seasons of the TV show of the same name aired from 1985 to 1989 and collected a number of nominations for Emmy, Golden Globe and other awards. The series was so popular that people on the street approached Edward Woodward, who played the main role, asking them to solve their problems.  Fukua and his mascot actor Denzel Washington gave the hero a new life. All thanks to the amazing cinematic nature of the latter: his McCall, like no one else, is expressively silent in the close-up. And even this silence already has an educational effect. The lonely retiree lives in a simple working-class neighborhood, humbly performs compulsory rituals, adheres to a schedule, and works as a driver in a system like the well-known Uber. There are more than enough stories about the avengers not by profession, but at the behest of the heart, in the movies. The "equalizer" among them is a cross between an aged "Taxi Driver" and Batman. From superheroes he has a sonorous name, which, however, appears only outside the film, and from Taxi Driver - his profession and closeness to the people, plus the salvation of a young prostitute in the first part.  In the sequel, McCall is even more active in educating, teaching and taking care of. The main storyline is the investigation of the bizarre murder of his only close friend. But you may not even notice it, because a good part of the screen time is eaten up by the mass of side arches. Here is a lonely old man, separated from his sister during World War II (this line, apparently, should set off and emphasize the loneliness of the protagonist), and the obligatory lost teenager in trouble, miraculously retrained from a drug dealer into an artist and a painter, and a dozen other good deeds done along the way and conducted educational conversations, the benefit of the profession of a taxi driver is. All this greatly slows down the already uncomplicated and unhurried plot, which is frankly uninteresting to follow.  “Equalizer” has already been criticized by both USA and foreign critics. Because if you consider it as an action movie, the film lacks action and entertainment. But I would like to remind you that the first part was calmly unhurried. Then the director in a fatherly way nodded to this fact, but he did not heed the advice. Perhaps because this was the otherness that allowed the first part to stand out from the clip of similar, like brothers, militants. The inconsistency of the pace with the genre was more than compensated for by the hilariously shown USA mafia, painted with domes and ridiculous inscriptions in Cyrillic. In addition, the main villain was a man with a simple, almost USA name Slavi, played by Marton Chokash, no less charismatic than Washington.  The new "Equalizer" with the villains was not yet lucky at the script level. Still, when McCall needs to patronize and reeducate so many, there is no screen time left for them. The hybridity, pleasant for its novelty, in combination with the pace that migrated from the first part, did not give the best result: both Batman and the taxi driver were supplanted by a moderately grumpy pensioner. And the pensioner also has less ambitious tasks. They don't save the world, but they chase the neighbors' hooligans and keep an eye on the order in the yard through the window. They also eavesdrop on other people's conversations. With approval or with a vague desire to instruct, depending on their content. And, of course, they methodically read books from the series "100 books that everyone should read." In the end, the good actor Pedro Pascal, as the main antagonist of the second part, had nothing left. The villain sadly waits when the hero finally will take up his education. But here's the bad luck - McCall with him just has absolutely no time to find out who stumbled when. As a result, the antagonist gets only the final fight in the rain and without any morality. Consequently, they did not have a conflict.  However, watching this film in the cinema will still rather delight fans of action films or Washington's talent. It features quite spectacular combat scenes with the trademark use of improvised items and disregard for weapons. There are beautiful views, such as the already mentioned Turkey from the train window or the coast in a storm. Plus, a dozen simple and pleasant truths, not burdening, but not annoying with outright vulgarity, a beloved actor and full adherence to the laws of "diving" - there are good people of all stripes, nationalities and religions around. And McCall has already re-educated all the bad ones. Well, it's time to rest, especially since the last book on the list has already begun. The Topic of Article: Gray in the beard. Review of the film ”The Great Equalizer 2”. |
